magumi

From time to time I also get asked to shoot an event for my friends or acquaintances. I always state my conditions up front:

 

1) I'll do it for free and I'll do my best but I give no guarantees;

 

2) The resulting product is one set of prints, I keep the film. If they want more prints, I'll do them myself for nominal fee;

 

3)I decide what I want to shoot and I make the final selection. If I am happy with half a dozen pictures, they won't get a 50-picture portfolio.

 

M.

<div></div>

Just like mountains, jazz musicians hardly ever move. Just put the camera on T setting, press the shutter, have a couple of beers, and return when the racket stops. Do not forget to put the earplugs before you enter the club or else you might go deaf and/or mad.

 

Just kidding. :)

 

My general rule of thumb is that 1/15 is the slowest you can get to shoot any living person and still avoid the worst of blurring. For musicians with fast and jerky movements, multiply accordingly. That does not mean, thought, that blurry is necessarily bad. In my experience, if you are lucky, you might have enough light for f 2.8 @ 1/125 and ISO 800, on the other hand in some clubs you might be glad for a measly f 1.4 @ 1/30 and ISO 800. Tripod will not help, fast lens is your best friend.

Terrible scan, but great expression nonetheless.<div></div>

Well, different photographers have different quality standards, but 10x enlargement does not seem excessive to me; even with a 10x enlargement, I often need a loupe to see the small detail in a print. And, in my opinion, if the print looks sharp viewed close at 7-10x enlargement, it will look sharp at any enlargement, because the viewing distance will change accordingly. Naturally, very fine-grained films developed with fine-grain developer might look less sharp than 400 ISO film in Rodinal even though they have higher resolution, but I guess you know that.

I don't see a point of contact sheets from slides, that's what lightboxes are for. On the other hand, I definitely prefer optical contact sheets from negatives to digital contacts or proof prints, because lab-corrected scans or prints can't tell me anything about how I fared with respect to exposure, basic colour correction, framing etc.

 

Concerning your digital/film dilemma, I believe it is advisable to think about it in terms of workflow, that is whether your workflow gives yout the convenience, the control and the results you want. Of course, if you are doing this professionally, equipment considerations must come secondary to finding your business niche and marketing your product.

It depends. What kind of focal lenghts do you use? How proficient are you in your darkroom? Can you routinely make large high-quality fiber prints? Or do you scan your film and have the pictures printed in Walmart? Do you have the discipline to capture the image the way you want, or do you need/prefer to dabble in Photoshop? How do you show your prints? In what lighting environment? Do you put them behind glass or display them "naked"? Into photo albums with a plastic foil? Or to cut to the chase, will you be able to tell and wil you enjoy the difference between results from different type of equipment, and will the new equipment be convenient enough not to stand in your way?

 

So you see, to decide about the equipment, first think about your workflow, your working methods and your intended output. Make the equipment work for you and not the other way round.I prefer my darkroom prints to the digital prints that my friends make from their DSLRs, but even if they were equal, I would not change anything, because my photographic interests, my workflow and my intended output perfectly match the equipment I use, making it easy for me to achieve the result I want, technically speaking. So I use film. Your needs may be different.

....cont.<div></div>

...cont.<div></div>

My personal favourite is the Dust and Scratches filter, followed by Gaussian blur for the dreamy look. I use healing brush and clone tool only when absolutely necessary. Let me show you my granny:<div></div>

Well, Ilford expressly dissuades users from presoaking, while the manufacturer of the new Rollei R3 film insists that presoaking is absolutely necessary for decent results. So I guess it depends on the film you are using, as well as whether you develop manually or in a large drum tank. I use Ilford, usually develop only two 135's at once, agitate by hand, and I do not bother with presoaking as I saw no difference between presoaked and dry negative.

...<div></div>

...<div></div>

three<div></div>

two<div></div>

one<div></div>

Grain (partially) off. Please note that the pictures look much grainier than in print, due to a bad scan, i.e. like a 18x24 cm or even 20x30 prints.<div></div>

The above responses reflect my experience too - Delta 3200 is excellent at 1600, developed in Microphen or DD-X at times Ilford recommends for 3200. I prefer DD-X to Microphen. Watch out for underexposure with this film, even half a stop can enhance the grain. Of course, you can also do that intentionally.<div></div>

I would choose a slow, low- to medium contrast film to allow for more tweaking with curves, i.e. one of the 160 natural color portrait films.

 

Concerning the dynamic range, you can get up to 14 stops with FP4+. I don't know of any C41 film that would come even close.

With a fine-grain developer such as Perceptol, the effective speed of Delta 400 drops by 2/3 to 1 stop at normal contrast, which gets you to 200 ASA (10 minutes for stock, if I remember it correctly), which is perfectly printable. You might try to agitate more vigorously and more often to maintain the contrast, although Delta with its thin emulsion is not particularly sensitive to small differences in agitation. Of course, as with every fine-grain developer, the developed film will appear slighly softer due to the finer grain than it would with D76.

I know what it is like. A friend of mine lost his house, including the darkroom and 50-years-worth of negatives and prints, virtually his entire lifetime work, as well as the biggest private theatre photography collection in the country in a flood that occured over here several years ago. My sympathies,

 

M.

I went through the same dilemma four months ago. I took a SLR with 50/1.4 and Delta 400 pushed to 800, which works very well in DD-X. It was rather dim in the hospital, the doctor used a spot lamp for those 5-10 minutes when she needed to see. The weighting and measuring took place in the same room, under a slightly brighter light.

 

As I said, I had my camera with me, but in the end, I rather spent the time with my wife rather than fiddling with camera. During the baby inspection, the midwife urged me to take a picture, but I did not want to spoil the moment for myself either. It was one of the most powerful experiences of my life and I had no thoughts of picture taking.

 

At the same time, I took plenty of pictures before we left for hospital, as we decided to stay in the comfort and privacy of home as long as possible, and then, of course, the following day.<div></div>

sorry - the Brooklyn Bridge

Hmmm...

 

A friend of mine, who is the owner of the largest publishing house in my country, visited NYC last year. He was apprehended for taking a picture of a Brooklyn bridge and interrogated for 13 hours. I don't think he will be coming back to US any time soon.

If I were you, I would ask <a href="http://www.horolezec.cz">this photographer</a>. He is the only person I know that climbs onto Himalaya peaks with his Hasselblad.